In 2015 Saudi Arabia and Sudan signed four agreements that committed the Saudi kingdom to funding three big dam projects in Sudan, as well as the cultivation and irrigation of more than a million acres near already-constructed dams on Sudanese territory. These financial promises are a 'quid pro quo' for the participation of the Sudanese Armed Forces since March 2015 in the war waged in Yemen by the Saudis. This briefing historicizes the renewed prioritization of dam building, situating it in a changing global political economy and the evolving strategic outlook of multiple African governments. Drawing on this context, the briefing then explores the particular motives of Sudan's Al-Ingaz regime for its dam activities, and demonstrates how its renewed investments have been enabled by the turbulent geopolitics of the Red Sea and the recently forged Saudi-Sudanese alliance to counter perceived Iranian expansionism in Yemen. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]